Electric Fence?

Heidi

So I was at this website looking for some kind of portable fencing option for Melvin, and I noticed that this particular product and several others mention that they can keep dogs in/out.

My initial reaction was negative, but lots of people use those invisible fences, and this is actually a lot safer in my mind. Because there's an actual physical barrier that can't just be ran through, and because it keeps things from coming in from outside. Also, it's more visible. It has a few other distinct advantages, First, it's very affordable. It's also very quick and easy to put up and portable. It wouldn't be very ideal for a small area, but for a huge yard, you could have a quick, easy, portable fence for a couple hundred instead of several thousand.

I don't suppose you could use them for the city - there are probably regulations against that. Also, there might be a risk of the dog getting tangled in the netting, so I wouldn't really want to leave them in there with no one around.

What do you guys think?

okiron

I'm all for electric fencing as long as it's done right. (ie don't have the voltage so high it can fry something)

Why do you need it to be portable? You'd probably get more for your money making your own fencing and wiring it.

Heidi

Well, I was looking into portable fencing for Melvin because we have so much pasture that it makes sense to move him from place to placeso he can graze it. Currently, the pasture fence needs to be completed, and even so, he can escape it. Long term, he needs a buddy so that he's not motivated to go escaping all the time. Short term, he needs some fencing that can hold him and allow him to graze.

Anyway, for the dogs, portable is appealing because we're going to be building a house on this property, but quite a ways away from where we live now, so it seems like a waste to invest a lot of money in fencing just to move. I've been working on a free fence from t-posts gathered from other places on the property where they don't need to be and wooden pallets. It's a lot of work, though, haha. I just can't bring myself to pay for a fence I'm going to leave behind. This would be awesome, though! The t-post/pallet fence is reasonable portable. the pallets slide off the top of the t-posts and the posts themselves are reasonably easy to pull up. Still, I'm busting my back doing this, it's taking forever, and ultimately, the yard is going to end up being a lot smaller than if I used eletric netting. The charger is the expensive part, after that, it's no big deal to fence in several acres.

Nekopan

We used ElectroNet to move the sheep around for grazing. I don't actually recall seeing any animals "testing" it... a couple of my friends did, though. It's a little painful but not excessively so. It's very handy because of its portability - we were able to divide pastures with it or move it to areas that weren't fenced in but needed some trimming, such as the front yard. I would say that it's a great investment.

Calia

I'd be careful with this type of fencing and smaller animals (such as Tojo). I have heard quite a few stories cardiac arrest due to getting stuck by the mouth (as some predators do tend to bite at an annoying fence thing that is in the way, and the electricity can cause the mouth muscles to be unable to open), or other body part and help not getting there on time.